Ethernet is a standard protocol for communicating information such as voice and data. Ethernet communications often involve one or more switches that receive communications and control retransmission to the appropriate destination. Often Ethernet communications involves a plurality of switches. Such switches may be coupled together in a chassis-based system. In a chassis-based system, a fixed chassis with slots for receiving individual switches is utilized. In such a chassis-based system, a number is assigned to each slot in the backplane in order to identify the placement of each blade or card in the backplane. Slot numbers are fixed and cannot be modified or assigned by the user of the switch.
An alternative switch system is a stackable switch system. Stackable switch systems utilize switches with identical or similar hardware configurations that can be stacked together by dedicated stacking interfaces. The stacking cables that connect the switches together can be thought of as a backplane where instead of hard-wired circuit boards with several slots to interconnect the different blades or cards of a chassis-based system, cables are connected to a stack interface on each of the switches in order to form the backplane. In such a stackable switch system, the “slots” are not fixed because the users of the switches have the ability to position the switches and any topology as they see fit.
The switches come with a factory default switch number and when these switches are stacked together, switch number conflicts may arise. Such conflicts may also arise when users remove switches from one stack and insert them into another stack where the switch number is already in use by another switch.